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Established in 1888 by the late 

 W. Z. Hutchinson 



OFFICIAL ORGANOF THE 



NATIONAL BEEKEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



AND ITS AFFILIATED ASSOCIATIONS 



E. D. TOWNSEND, Managing Editor, Northstar, Michigan 



ASSOCIATE EDITORS 

 WESLEY FOSTER, Boulder, Colo. PilOF. EDWIN G. BALDWIX, Deland, Fla. 



Entered as second-class matter December 9 1913, at the postoffice at 

 North Star, Michigan, under the act of March 3, 1879. 



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VOL. XXVII NORTHSTAR, MICH HIGAN, OCTOBER 1, 1914 No. 10 



Why I Winter in the Cellar 



By DAVID KUNXING, Filion, Mich, 



Presented at the Michigan State Convention, Detroit, December^ 1913. 



My reasons are as follows: 

 First, My place is located in the 

 northermost part of the thumb of 

 Michigan. Lake Huron being only 

 seven miles distant on the east and 

 five miles to the north, while Sagi- 

 naw Ba,y extends to the west and 

 southwest. This means that we 

 have piercing cold winds off the 

 water and ice all winter, regardless 

 of where it comes from excepting 

 the south. 



Second, We some times have 

 heavy falls of snow coming before 

 the ground is frozen in the fall and 

 remaining all winter. This keeps 

 out door wintered bees in a damp 

 condition, since the snow keeps 

 melting from below regardless of 

 how cold it is above the snow which 

 is often three feet or more deep 

 on the level. During the winter of 



1903-1904 I lost 112 out of 144 

 colonies from tbis cause. On the 

 12th of April 19 04 as the weather 

 was beginning to moderate some- 

 what, I thought I would go out and 

 inspect the bees which had been 

 covered with snow since the fall 

 before. This is what I found. There 

 was no frost in the ground what- 

 ever, the snow had melted around 

 the hives as much as two feet on 

 all sides. Bees had been rearing 

 brood quite heavily and were ap- 

 parently nearly all alive although 

 everything was damp. But while 

 the bees were alive they were in 

 a weakened condition and dwindled 

 very rajpidly, as many as twelve and 

 fifteen colonies dying every day, 

 and what few pulled through (32 

 in all) were weakened so that they 

 hardly amounted to anything that 



